Member benefit – Assassination attempt, a Catholic view

Whether you love or hate Trump – your Irascible Correspondent supports him with reservations (full disclosure) – what happened Saturday was an act of evil thwarted by Heaven, or chance if you prefer.  It is, at least in part, an unexpected answer to prayer.  More on that after the video.

For a few months I’ve been praying the prayer of Azariah, found in the Septuagint version of Daniel chapter 3 verses 26-45 (relegated to the Apocrypha in older Protestant Bibles, expunged altogether in the last century or so). I say that if the whole nation falls to our collective knees an prays this prayer daily this nation stands a chance, not otherwise. For my personal protection, and that of my family, I also turn to Psalms 130 and 91.

26 “Blessed are you, and praiseworthy,
O Lord, the God of our ancestors,
and glorious forever is your name.
27 For you are just in all you have done;
all your deeds are faultless, all your ways right,
and all your judgments proper.
28 You have executed proper judgments
in all that you have brought upon us
and upon Jerusalem, the holy city of our ancestors.
By a proper judgment you have done all this
because of our sins;
29 For we have sinned and transgressed
by departing from you,
and we have done every kind of evil.
30 Your commandments we have not heeded or observed,
nor have we done as you ordered us for our good.
31 Therefore all you have brought upon us,
all you have done to us,
you have done by a proper judgment.
32 You have handed us over to our enemies,
lawless and hateful rebels;
to an unjust king, the worst in all the world.
33 Now we cannot open our mouths;
shame and reproach have come upon us,
your servants, who revere you.
34 For your name’s sake, do not deliver us up forever,
or make void your covenant.
35 Do not take away your mercy from us,
for the sake of Abraham, your beloved,
Isaac your servant, and Israel your holy one,
36 To whom you promised to multiply their offspring
like the stars of heaven,
or the sand on the shore of the sea.
37 For we are reduced, O Lord, beyond any other nation,
brought low everywhere in the world this day
because of our sins.
38 We have in our day no prince, prophet, or leader,
no burnt offering, sacrifice, oblation, or incense,
no place to offer first fruits, to find favor with you.
39 But with contrite heart and humble spirit
let us be received;
As though it were burnt offerings of rams and bulls,
or tens of thousands of fat lambs,
40 So let our sacrifice be in your presence today
and find favor before you;
for those who trust in you cannot be put to shame.
41 And now we follow you with our whole heart,
we fear you and we seek your face.
Do not put us to shame,
42 but deal with us in your kindness and great mercy.
43 Deliver us in accord with your wonders,
and bring glory to your name, O Lord:
44 Let all those be put to shame
who inflict evils on your servants;
Let them be shamed and powerless,
and their strength broken;
45 Let them know that you alone are the Lord God,
glorious over the whole world.”

I invite you, my friends, to join me in prayer for our nation and the world.

For what are men better than sheep or goats

That nourish a blind life within the brain,

If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer

Both for themselves and those who call them friend?

For so the whole round earth is every way

Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.

— Tennyson – Idyls of the King —